


Frothing at the Heart

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Barista John, Cobbler Greg, Coffee, How to make a good espresso, M/M, Melbourne, Tailor Mycroft, latte art, lyrical descriptions of the making of coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 21:50:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5432060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captains of Industry is not a place for complacency. It is full of people who make their living their art, and do it to their utmost. John Watson, barista, doesn't just make coffee. He makes an <em>art </em>out of making coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frothing at the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> My niece Jess is a barista and helped me to edit this piece so that it accurately reflects the art of the perfect coffee.

Sherlock is bored by a lot of things in the world, but the thing that bores him most is complacency. Most people simply make no effort, at anything, and he despises them for it.

Captains of Industry is not a place for complacency. It is a haven for people who make the utmost effort to do the thing they love to the highest extent of their skills, and who then push their skills further. Even Sally Donovan, who saves rehearsals for other spaces, sits at the table with coffee, a pencil and a notebook and scrawls lyrics for wild love songs that she sings to her Molly. Sally explodes her heart open and paints the sky with red words and heartbeat rhythms to describe her passion. Molly describes herself as a barber, or a hairdresser, but those who come to her know that she is, in fact, some kind of Queen of the Coiffure, a Maestro of Curls and Cuts, a Tamer of the Wild and Galvaniser of the Tame.

Okay. So nobody calls her any of those things, but they feel it in their bones, those names for her. Just as Mrs Hudson wields magic in the kitchen, and at the tables, making a place where, for all the perfectionism, the atmosphere is warm and relaxed and all are welcome.

John Watson, who was a soldier who dealt in emergency first aid as much as firearms, has found a quiet place for himself at Captains of Industry – a place of calm and order and focus in which his purposeful, efficient movements are the eloquent ballet of his own passions. His coffee-making is part science, part alchemy, depending on the bean and the roast and the blend.

Sherlock likes to watch John as he fills each hopper – two single origins and the house blend in the third – and as he confidently dials in each grinder. If the grind is too coarse, the pour will be too fast, the taste sour and lacking depth; if it’s too fine, the pour will be too slow, over-extract, and the result bitter.

John weighs each and every shot through the day, within two grams of twenty for the perfect consistency. For each shot, John tamps the ground firmly to pack it in tight. Once the coffee is in the basket, he quickly locks the group head into place, twisting the handle of it with a decisive, swift flick of his wrist.

And then the pour. The coffee that runs into the cup should be a golden brown, perfect in scent and colour, and that too is an alchemical art that relies on knowledge of the beans and blends. The moment the golden brown pour begins to blond – when it pales and becomes more watery – the shot is complete.

The preparation of the milk is no less an art. Sherlock sometimes orders a latte just to watch John’s hands on the jug, on the wand.

John holds the steamer wand just below the surface of the milk, listening to the faint hiss of steam as the milk spins in the metal jug and begins to foam. But he is not making milkshakes, this is not about bubbles – it’s about the satiny texture of milk heated to perfection. As the top layer froths _just so_ , and the jug begins to warm, John allows the steam wand to sink further into the milk, so that the tiny bubbles of froth are smoothed into 72 degrees Celcius of hot, soft, silky elegance.

When John makes latte art, he freepours tulips and rosettas and turns some of those into other things. When Sherlock drank only long blacks, he got no art, but since he began to experiment with lattes so that he can watch John’s hands, Sherlock has been getting hearts, and swans with loveheart heads feathery bodies.

When he learned how much Sherlock liked bees, John took up a toothpick and learned to make bees in the froth of his darling’s café lattes.

Today, in a saucy mood, John places the glass by Sherlock’s elbow and says, ‘my plans for tonight, if you like,’ and Sherlock raises an eyebrow at the freepour art of an ejaculating penis. He makes a point of catching John’s eye before smirkingly sipping the foam ejaculate. John grins and spends the last hour before closing cleaning the steam wand suggestively whenever he thinks Sherlock can see him. Which is all the time.

Mycroft laments that the two of them are just like teenagers, until Gregory unzips his jeans just enough to display the hand-tooled, soft black leather lace-up cock-pouch cage pants he changed into not half an hour ago. He likes to surprise Mycroft with secret dress-ups during the day.

At the sight of the distinct outline of Greg's half-hard cock in the pouch, Mycroft stabs himself in the thumb with a needle.

Greg gently places Mycroft’s bleeding digit into his mouth and proceeds to fellate his boyfriend’s thumb until said boyfriend has to stop squirming in his chair in case he makes himself come in his just-drycleaned suit.

At the end of the day, John fastidiously cleans the espresso machine. He dries his hands, twists the ends of his moustache to perfection and then he and Sherlock head out – to the pop-up garden, to a bar, to explore the city or to one home or the other to explore each other.

They have other skills to practise, other uses for their hands, and another wonderful night together to build on their repertoire of how to love each other – to perfection.

**Author's Note:**

> Some coffee art is on the tumblr, [ here](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/135233890228/221b-hound-coffee-art-a-bit-of-a-thing-around) and [ here](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/135234119088/these-are-example-of-coffee-art-that-may-appear-in) but here are the best bits:
> 
>   
>    
> 


End file.
